“I see that there’s two sides to this coin, if I’m being honest,” Gilligan said in an interview with the BBC.

“In some ways the illegal downloading has helped us, certainly, in terms of brand awareness,” he said. “The downside is a lot of folks who worked on the show would have made more money, myself included, if all those downloads had been legal.”

Piracy is “ultimately a problem and will continue to be a problem going forward,” Gilligan said. “Because we all need to eat. We all need to get paid.”

Other bizzers have openly discussed piracy’s silver lining. Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes recently said that illegal downloads of original programming like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” ultimately lead to more paying subscribers for the premium cabler. “Game of Thrones” is one of the most-pirated TV shows in the world, and “that’s better than an Emmy,” Bewkes said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call.

“I think Netflix kept us on the air,” he told reporters after the show won the Emmy for best drama last month. “Not only are we standing up here (with the Emmy), I don’t think our show would have even lasted beyond season two.”

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